I missed the Norman Dale Fan Club so much during our run of success. Nice to see you guys back here.
It could be that when one plays in the Big 10, mostly cupcakes in the pre-conference season is the way to go. Give us 5 more wins and we might be on the bubble, going into the Indiana and Penn State games and the BTT.
I agree that taking on this schedule was probably a mistake, especially with a young team. But when you look at it, I'm not sure there's much more you could have done to soften it up. So many mandatory games were on the schedule -- the ACC/B1G Challenge, the Gavitt Games, Mizzou, and 20 conference games were a given. Maybe you pass up Maui, but do you really want to pass up Maui? The UNLV game was a return game set up a couple of years ago, and wound up being the third easiest game on the schedule.
That leaves you with four slots to play with. FAU wound up being a better team than expected, but they're still an easy draw that the team bungled. Next year will be much of the same, minus Maui but plus some other holiday tournament.
This is just kind of the deal as long as the B1G is an elite conference and as long as we play 20 conference games. It's why IU can bumble into the tournament with 17 wins. And it's why our record looks so much worse than it did when we had 16 league games, fewer made-for-TV events, and five more cupcakes to play.
Nothing's gonna change until we get more experienced, more talented, and more athletic.